To capture the memories

One of the most important vendors, possibly the most important, in my opinion, is the photographer. I've been browsing photography websites for quite some time now. I've just always loved looking at beautiful professional photos, so when we got engaged, I already had a number of photographers in my head that I knew we would want to interview.

On Monday, we met with Annette at Annette Dragon Photography. Wonderfully nice woman, great work, GREAT prices, but not for us. I think I knew it right away, but since she was the first that we met with, we didn't make any decisions immediately.

On Tuesday, we met with Julia and Kurtis at Kracke Photography. They are so great! They're a husband and wife team, both went to school for photography, and now basically all they shoot is weddings. In the winter, when no one wants to get married in Rochester, they travel around the country and shoot weddings for out-of-state clients.

When we first started wedding planning, we thought we would get married on June 28. Unfortunately, Kurtis and Julia weren't available on that date (already booked!) so I didn't even think they would be an option. When we had to change the date to the 21st, however, I looked at the schedule again... and sure enough, they were still available.

At our meeting, we sat and talked with the Krackes for about an hour--they showed us so much of their work (all SO beautiful), showed us their basic pricing, showed us all the types of albums they have available, etc. Not only is their work fabulous, but they also seem to be really fun people. They're on the younger side, and both have great senses of humor. On the way home, Michael and I were actually talking about cancelling all the rest of our photographer meetings to book the Krackes. We just felt that we really didn't need to look any further. But we talked ourselves out it and decided to keep the meetings and give ourselves a little more time.

So the Krackes put a 72-hour hold on our date for us, and told us to call if we had made a decision. I asked that in the meantime, they let me know if anyone else inquired about our date. We figured as long as no one else was trying to book June 21, we could buy ourselves some more time to go through with the other photographer meetings we have scheduled for next week. Well, it didn't really work out that way. Julia called today to say that someone called her this morning wanting to meet about June 21. They set up a meeting for Sunday afternoon (way before our meetings with any of the other photogs). We don't want to lose them, so I immediately went into action to call the rest of the photographers and try to move up our meetings with them. We're about 98% sure we want the Krackes... but we wanted to meet with other photographers first to be sure we're sure.

Tomorrow night, after Michael gets out of work, we're meeting with another husband/wife photography team. After that, we may just make a decision. There are three other photographers who I would have liked to have met with just to meet with them, but I think I would have a hard time booking ONE photographer now that I know I could have TWO for the price of one.

This will probably be a really tough decision for us... out of all the things we need to buy and pay for, this is the only thing from the wedding that we'll have for the rest of our lives.